Shaun the Sheep is a cute character from Aardman Animations. On the Shaun the Sheep YouTube channel, you can find short videos that your students will love. I use them in my small groups to reflect on positive school behaviors and interpersonal skills. When students earn a "lunch in the school counselor's office" reward, sometimes I show these clips while we eat. Each clip sparks great group discussion about what it means to "play fair," show good sportsmanship, treat others with respect, and more.

You could also use Shaun the Sheep during your classroom lessons to introduce a new concept, transition to a group activity, or close a lesson.

When I want to keep track of specific behaviors during my group sessions, I use ClassDojo (previous Website of the Month). You can use it K-6, but it may need to look differently at each grade level. Not only does ClassDojo keep excellent data for me, it also helps my students set goals and identify the target behaviors they are demonstrating in each session.

With ClassDojo, I can organize all of my groups and archive them at the end of each school year. I love being able to look back at how individual students and groups performed, because I can use that information to better facilitate future small groups.

Another great ClassDojo feature is that each group can focus on customizable target behaviors. Since the focus is on the positive behaviors, I don't include many negatives (where students lose "Dojo points"). The only negative I use is "disrespectful to others" because I want to show that I will not tolerate hurtful words or actions in our group sessions. I've never had to use it, but the students know it's there. I think it's important to show that in order for our group to be successful, we MUST be kind to one another; our group needs to be a safe space to communicate our thoughts and feelings.

I am lucky enough to have a SMARTboard in my room, so I project the ClassDojo screen and add points through that board. It helps students to see their progress throughout the session. Then, I reset the points at the end of the group (which doesn't delete the data) so that we can start fresh the next group time. If you don't have a SMARTboard, you can use your desktop computer, a tablet, or smart phone.

ClassDojo also added some AMAZING video tools too! In their Big Ideas section, you can watch mini-series about growth mindset, perseverance, empathy, and gratitude. You can check out the first episodes on ClassDojo's YouTube channel, but if you create a free account on their main page, you can watch all of them.

New Small Group Activities Added!

What Do You Do With An Idea? is a wonderful book that explains how ideas can be exciting and scary, all at the same time. In the story, the main character likes their idea, but is worried about what other people might think or say.

Often, we spend so much time stressing about putting our thoughts and feelings on the table that we keep potentially AMAZING ideas to ourselves. Our students are no different. My goal is to encourage my creative, enthusiastic elementary kiddos to be confident and assertive; I want them to know that their opinions matter and that without them, the world would be a boring place, full of the same old ideas and the same old conversations.

You could open this lesson by showing the "Ideas Are Scary" commercial from GE. It grabs your attention and gives a clear symbol of how ideas enter the world, grow, and flourish.

Then, after reading the book, have a discussion with your students about why ideas are scary. Have they ever felt like they needed to keep their thoughts or feelings to themselves out of fear that someone might judge them? I wanted to focus this conversation on ideas that could make our school a better place - ideas that may seem impossible or silly at first.

The students write down their ideas and add a picture to illustrate the impact of that idea (i.e. starting a buddy bench at school, sitting next to someone new at lunch, picking up litter in the hallway, etc.).